Another day, another release from Moon Books in their Pagan Portals line. This popular line is meant to provide onramps for topics typically not well-represented in neopagan literature, or else provide an introduction to large subjects in a way that lets the reader then explore without being completely bewildered. Some of them are darned-near complete resources in and of themselves, while others definitely keep their focus on being step one in your journey. Author Kelle BanDea recently released the Pagan Portals entry Modron: Meeting the Celtic Mother Goddess and now follows it up with the related entry Mabon: Discovering the Celtic God of Hunting, Healing, and the Harp. Whereas the previous volume did it's job fairly well, I do have sightly more reservation with this latest book.
To begin, I don't think there's anything actively wrong with Mabon; to the best of my admittedly modest knowledge (but also a fair amount of post hoc research) nothing is taking the reader actively astray from the subject. The sections on Mabon as the Exalted Prisoner (Chatper 5) and, especially, Working With Mabon (Chapter 7) should prompt the reader towards real introspection and a deepening understanding. I think the Invocation to Mabon was lovely, and the Ritual for Liberation was striking not just in its language but also its applicability for so many things that could be going on in the readers life. For those things alone, Mabon is at least worth your consideration. So what's the problem? More so than usual, the references are sparse. For example, in The Oldest Animals (Chapter 4) BanDea tells us that "it is believed that the three birds of Rhiannon from the Mabinogi were blackbirds" but if I find that interesting enough to explore I'll be stuck without knowing by whom, or for what reason, this is believed. Cites to other authors only occasionally include page numbers - which is almost more frustrating than if they never appeared. Why only sometimes?
I still don't have any sort of expertise to take issue with the conclusions in BanDea's latest book, and I absolutely think that I know more about Mabon than I did before I read this, so the mission can be marked off as "accomplished". I just can't give as full-throated a recommendation as I have done in the past for other Pagan Portals entries, even accounting for the introductory nature. Definitely worth a look if the topic interests you and you don't know where to begin, but if you've already done some of the work learning about Mabon this is probably not going to expand the topic much for you.
~review by WandererÂ
Author: Kelle BanDea
Moon Books, 2025
96 pg., $12.95
